III
When the stage drew up in front of the little hotel, it found Uncle Billy Tutt prepared for his revenge. In former days the stage had always stopped at the Tutt House for the noonday meal. Since the new railway was built through the adjoining county, however, the stage trip became a mere twelve-mile, cross-country transfer from one railroad to another, and the stage made a later trip, allowing the passengers plenty of time for “dinner” before they started. Day after day, as the coach flashed by with its money-laden passengers, Uncle Billy had hoped that it would break down. But this was better, much better. The coach might be quickly mended, but not the flood.
“I’m a-goin’ t’ charge ’em till they squeal,” he declared to the timidly protesting Aunt Margaret, “an’ then I’m goin’ t’ charge ’em a least mite more, drat ’em!”
He retreated behind the rough wooden counter that did duty as a desk, slammed open the flimsy, paper-bound “cash book” that served as a register, and planted his elbows uncompromisingly on either side of it.
“Let ’em bring in their own traps,” he commented, and Aunt Margaret fled, ashamed and conscience-smitten, to the kitchen. It seemed awful.
The first one out of the coach was the husband of the brunette matron, and, proceeding under instructions, he waited neither for luggage nor women folk, but hurried straight into the Tutt House. The other man would have been neck and neck with him in the race, if it had not been that he paused to seize two suitcases and had the misfortune to drop one, which burst open and scattered a choice assortment of lingerie from one end of the dingy coach to the other.
In the confusion of rescuing the fluffery, the owner of the suitcase had to sacrifice her hauteur and help her husband and son block up the aisle, while the other matron had the ineffable satisfaction of being kept waiting, at last being enabled to say, sweetly and with the most polite consideration:
“Will you kindly allow me to pass?”
The blonde matron raised up and swept her skirts back perfectly flat. She was pale but collected. Her husband was pink but collected. Her son was crimson and uncollected. The brunette daughter could not have found an eye anywhere in his countenance as she rustled out after her mother.
“I do hope that Belmont has been able to secure choice quarters,” the triumphing matron remarked as her daughter joined her on the ground. “This place looked so very small that there can scarcely be more than one comfortable suite in it.”
It was a vital thrust. Only a splendidly cultivated self-control prevented the blonde matron from retaliating upon the unfortunate who had muddled things. Even so, her eyes spoke whole shelves of volumes.
The man who first reached the register wrote, in a straight black scrawl, “J. Belmont Van Kamp, wife, and daughter.” There being no space left for his address, he put none down.
“I want three adjoining rooms, en suite if possible,” he demanded.
“Three!” exclaimed Uncle Billy, scratching his head. “Won’t two do ye? I ain’t got but six bedrooms in th’ house. Me an’ Marg’t sleeps in one, an’ we’re a-gittin’ too old fer a shake-down on th’ floor. I’ll have t’ save one room fer th’ driver, an’ that leaves four. You take two now—-”
Mr. Van Kamp cast a hasty glance out of the window, The other man was getting out of the coach. His own wife was stepping on the porch.
“What do you ask for meals and lodging until this time to-morrow?” he interrupted.
The decisive moment had arrived. Uncle Billy drew a deep breath.
“Two dollars a head!” he defiantly announced. There! It was out! He wished Margaret had stayed to hear him say it.
The guest did not seem to be seriously shocked, and Uncle Billy was beginning to be sorry he had not said three dollars, when Mr. Van Kamp stopped the landlord’s own breath.
“I’ll give you fifteen dollars for the three best rooms in the house,” he calmly said, and Landlord Tutt gasped as the money fluttered down under his nose.
“Jis’ take yore folks right on up, Mr. Kamp,” said Uncle Billy, pouncing on the money. “Th’ rooms is th’ three right along th’ hull front o’ th’ house. I’ll be up and make on a fire in a minute. Jis’ take th’ Jonesville Banner an’ th’ Uticky Clarion along with ye.”
As the swish of skirts marked the passage of the Van Kamps up the wide hall stairway, the other party swept into the room.
The man wrote, in a round flourish, “Edward Eastman Ellsworth, wife, and son.”
“I’d like three choice rooms, en suite,” he said.
“Gosh!” said Uncle Billy, regretfully. “That’s what Mr. Kamp wanted, fust off, an’ he got it. They hain’t but th’ little room over th’ kitchen left. I’ll have to put you an’ your wife in that, an’ let your boy sleep with th’ driver.”
The consternation in the Ellsworth party was past calculating by any known standards of measurement. The thing was an outrage! It was not to be borne! They would not submit to it!
Uncle Billy, however, secure in his mastery of the situation, calmly quartered them as he had said. “An’ let ’em splutter all they want to,” he commented comfortably to himself.